World of Warcraft Classic
Old School Runescape
Now what came to mind when I mentioned those games?
Nostalgia
There’s this trend of creating older games that, whether we like them or not, evoke powerful feelings of nostalgia when we look back and consider playing them.
The two examples I’m going to use and compare are WoW Classic and OSRS. I’m going to be taking a look into what initially made these games successful and why one seemingly “died” and the other succeeded. I’ll be comparing the seemingly failures of WoW Retail to RS3 and WoW classic to OSRS.
First we have to ask ourselves,
What would drive a developer to create an older version of their own game?
Now these are all companies and every company wants to make money so this can easily be answered with reason number 1. Profit, which is in turn driven by player demand.
Now to get to the bottom of this we need to ask ourselves - What drives that player demand for a retro version of a game such as classic WoW and OSRS?
I can think of two reasons - Lack of satisfaction with the direction of the current game and Pure Nostalgia
In a paradoxical nature, the players want the game they play to continually have new updates, new features and places to explore. However, a consequence of innovation is potentially creating or updating content that the players may dislike.
For example, World of Warcraft has changed so much over the years. It used to be a game that required you to grind and work towards max level. There were no shortcuts or easy methods of obtaining that goal. Today, there are level boosts and ways to expedite the leveling process such that it’s not unheard of for a player to obtain max level in a matter of hours. In contrast to WoW back in the day, there wasn’t really anything you could achieve of value by paying your way for it or at least it wasn’t as accessible as it is today. In today’s WoW, you can pay for tokens that can be exchanged to get you as much gold as you want. That gold can be used to purchase some of the best gear and in addition pay for carries to achieve what people would consider to be the endgame content (Mythic Raid or PvP carries for example).
Current WoW players are also unhappy with the constant addition of borrowed power systems that invalidate your hard work every time an expansion comes out. In addition, there are secondary systems like Covenants, renown level, grinding stygia, the maw, Torghast, and others that frustrate players because they feel like they have to do content that isn’t fun in order to progress. Also, the progress in your secondary system does not carry over to your alt accounts which makes redoing the process that much worse. It’s like they want you to redo all your hard work on your second character just to improve their player retention rates and waste your time.
So players were angry and looked back to a better time. A simpler time. When there were no level boosts and you earned your progress in a way that was fun and most importantly, meaningful. The release of classic WoW was ultra popular and saw a rise in players that WoW has not seen in a long time. It was great, while it lasted. However, players already completed the content before. They’ve long since hyper-optimized the gear, the routes of progression, and everything else such that the content has become a joke to complete. Players quickly became bored and moved onto something else in terms of PvE. Now, the PvP scene took a different turn as players aimed for higher rank, even in the pool of toxicity that is Classic WoW PvP.
Then level boosts in Classic WoW were introduced. The Cash Shop. Store mounts and WoW tokens in classic world of warcraft - This was supposed to be the game that didn’t have any of the features of retail WoW - it was supposed to stay true to the original.
That’s when players had their last straw. Even the most popular classic WoW player MadSeason quit. He said that he couldn’t continue making content that he’s not passionate about and it’s because they ruined the game. He said “I’d rather have a channel that’s dead than one that isn’t alive” in his “No King Rules Forever” video - and those words cut deep.
Now contrast the road that Classic WoW went down with what Old School Runescape did. For those of you that don’t know, There are two versions of Runescape - Runescape 3 is a continuation of the original game after a massive update changed how combat was played known as the “evolution of combat” update. A lot of players were frustrated with this update in particular and so old school runescape was born, a version of the game that essentially allowed you to play the game the exact way it was in 2007.
Now again, what was the driving force for the creation of old school runescape?
A combination of dissatisfaction with the direction of the current game and Pure Nostalgia
Players weren’t happy with the evolution of combat system. They missed their old tick based combat that was much simpler and easier to follow. Just browsing the subreddit back then and there are comments like “EoC ruined all forms of pures, removed weapon variance, removed special comboing, and changed the combat level calc, all things that destroyed the pvp scene.”
A petition was created by some of the more well known RS3 players in 2012 and this created so much headway and sparked so much interest in the community that Runescape CEO at the time, Mark Gerhard, offered to create a poll in which - if a certain number of players voted for the creation of an old version of runescape, namely a saved file of it from 2007, that they would proceed with making the game and even dedicate a small team of developers to provide updates for it
The poll resulted in 449,351 people showing their interest for 2007scape aka OSRS.
Old School servers launched on the[ 22nd of February, 2013]. Some users still had gripes about how the game had been split in two. Many people assumed interest would wane once players took their rose-tinted glasses off, and saw the cracks in the 6 year-old game they were playing. So far, these people have been proven wrong - with the player population of OSRS being far greater than RS3.
Now what did OSRS do differently that kept their players happy that Classic WoW didn’t?
I mean, clearly, the OSRS development team truly listened to their players. In one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen an MMORPG implement successfully - There is an in-game voting system in which every single player has the right to vote for new content. They legit ask you if you want certain pieces of content like a new quest or skill to come out and you vote Yes or No or Skip question. A supermajority of 75% Yes is required for the content to pass.
Some people describe this polling system as a double-edged sword - As the results of the majority may not necessarily be whats best for the game and sometimes the % required for something to pass can be so close to that 75% supermajority and fail that it leaves most of the playerbase unsatisfied with the results. In fact, there are recent polls that sparked outrage by some because a new skill, called Warding, received a 66% Yes and a 33% No, ultimately being rejected. Some might say this isn’t good for the game, however, this is truly what listening to the community is all about. It’s actual democracy implemented into a videogame and I hope other games start to follow in OSRS’s footsteps.
Now compared to WoW Classic - OSRS didn’t allow level boosts (which would have completely ruined the game) but did introduce Runescape Bonds in order to combat 3rd party gold sellers and RWT - In terms of claiming that OSRS is a P2W game - Most players would agree with the following statement:
“I don’t think it’s that huge of a problem because a vast majority of anything meaningful in this game requires grinding at the end of the day. It’s still bad for the integrity of the game, but within the context of gold farming and rwt its definitely more ethical to just buy the bond from jagex then it is to support rwt directly.”
Technically, if a player was desperate enough to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on old school bonds and then subsequently sell them on the grand exchange - they could “pay to win” their way to some of the best gear in the game. However, most players would agree that grinding and working your way towards your goals is one of the main ways players derive satisfaction. Also, the dollar to gold ratio is not worth it for the average player so most people don’t consider this a pay to win system.
Comparing OSRS to WoW classic again, the fact that these polls allow for players to continuously update the game as they see fit - it allows even an old version of the game to evolve. WoW classic became easily optimized and players were left with a feeling of boredom once the endgame content was finished. In OSRS, a stream of new content, chosen by the players, is continuously released. I think this is the main reason why OSRS never failed like WoW classic did. This new content provides players with something to do since it is updated on a regular basis. Not only did OSRS release new content but that content was chosen by its playerbase.
Most recently, A new Blizzard Survey just went out to random recipients, asking the community for feedback about the possibility of Classic Fresh servers, updates to Classic, and a preferred Phase cadence after launch. This new server may have some quality of life updates different from the original classic such as more difficult raid bosses, no world buffs in raids, faster xp rates, summoning stones, etc.
I think what would really take Classic Fresh to the next level would be introducing “new” content specific for classic Fresh much in the same way that OSRS releases “new” content different from RS3. For me personally, I have high hopes for Classic Fresh. I think the classic Fresh developers want to listen to the WoW community similarly to how OSRS devs listened to their community. If it led to success with OSRS I don’t see why it wouldn’t lead to success with Classic Fresh. If a similar type of democratic voting system was introduced to Classic Fresh, it would allow the player base to hold the devs responsible for making the content that we want - When we vote for content, We’ll be able to make the world of warcraft that we always wanted.
What do you all think? Would a poll system like the one implemented in OSRS be beneficial and potentially save Classic Fresh servers?
TLDR: Would a poll system like the one in OSRS be positive for Classic Fresh servers?
Thanks